Hi, I just joined up here, Thinking about staying I'm having trouble with my pc.

I recently removed the log on screen for windows, making it log on automatically as there is only one user. It worked great for about a week. I'm not sure if thats whats causing the problem. Anway last night I was playing Star Wars EOW and I decided to stop playing, so I held down the off button and it turned off. Then this morning I plugged in the Crossover cable to connect the two computers. Then I turned on the problem computer and when it logged on there was no explorer. There was the desktop picture, but no start buttons or icons. So I press alt+ctrl+del and the task manager came up. I was able to start processes like play games through task manager, but as imagined, this is not ideal xD So any help would be GREAT.

Thanks,

When I run explorer.exe with program manager, the start button appears for a second, then disappears.

wait a minute you held the off button on the pc? why not just exit the game and then shutdown?

Can you start explorer.exe from the task manager? Also, any particular reason why you shut off your PC in an unsafe manner like that?

Try to boot in Last Good Configuration using F8 key at startup

No particular reason no, and yes I can run explorer using task manager, only the start button flahses up for just a second.

I cans still play games and stuff as long as it is run from task manager.

So is there anyway I can somehow run the Microsoft windows XP using task manager and repair windows or something? If not, I have a second hard drive, could I just install windows on that and play games off the first? ANd somehow export the registry? Like install windows on HD 2. Then go to the first HD's windows folder and grab the registry so I can still play games?

WHen I run it in safe mode the start bar flashes on and then off.

Edited April 6, 200719 yr by nsignificant

Just popped the cd in, pressed start new task, went to browse, went to setup.exe on windows cd and clicked Upgrade. Hope this works.

Didn't work. I will just install XP on the second hard drive... can you all tell me where the registry files are located? So that I may copy them from the old windows to the new one? thanks.

There are several important tasks that Windows performs during the normal (correct) shutdown procedure.

Using the "power off" technique should only be done if your computer is hopelessly LOCKED up.

If that left the registry screwed up, and you can get windows back up and running, even in safe mode, then

doing a System (Registry) Restore will usually put things back in order.

I need to do this "System Restore" about once a week when some program I'm testing messes up my desktop or some such.

I even run a little script from my Startup folder to force a Restore Point on every boot-up. This assures that I'll always have a fresh restore point handy when I need it. (at the very least, one per day)

The very first thing you should have done it try to run System Restore and go back to a restore point made when the system was functioning properly.

Good Luck,

Andromeda43